THE HIJACKERSConfusion Over Names Clouds
Identities of Attackers on JetsBy NEIL MacFARQUHAR
New York Times - Sept. 21, 2001, pg. B8

CAIRO, Sept. 20  Many of the
19 hijacking suspects in the terror attacks last week remain
shrouded in confusion, with almost nothing known about some and
up to five apparent cases of mistaken identity.
The F.B.I. list of hijacking suspects
does include the names of at least six missing Saudi Arabian
men who left their country, ostensibly to join the Islamic fighters
battling the Russians in Chechnya, plus four others whose parents
have lost contact with them.
But the lack of the details about the
suspects, plus the assertions of mistaken identity, have left
their parents refusing to mourn and Saudi Arabian officials dismissive
of the entire list.
"The haste in publishing the names
of suspects in the attacks has made the media fall into the error
of involving innocent people, especially Saudis," Prince
Mit'eb bin Abdullah, the deputy commander of the Saudi National
Guard, complained to reporters in Riyadh.
The use of wrong names and pictures may
indicate that the hijackers filched the identities of fellow
Saudis.
In the United States, Robert Mueller,
the director of the F.B.I., acknowledged Thursday that there
were questions about the identities of several of the hijackers
on the list.
"We have several hijackers whose
identities were those of the names on the manifest, we have several
others who are still in question," Mr. Mueller said while
touring the crash site in Pennsylvania of one hijacked plane.
An official at the Saudi Embassy in Washington
said there were five mistaken identities on the list, adding
that all the men were alive and living abroad.
Saudi officials say part of the problem
stems from the proliferation of similar names in Saudi Arabia,
as well as the numerous varieties of spelling them in English.
One of the most common surnames on the
F.B.I. list is Alshehri. But in English various members of the
clan might spell it Alshahri or Alshehiri or Al-Shehri, entangling
search efforts.
Far more difficult is the fact that the
country's huge tribes repeat the same names over and over again.
Saudis use at least three names: their
given name, their father's name, and their tribal name. Between
the father's name and the tribal name, many also insert the name
of a fourth, favored ancestor. But even brothers do not always
choose the same name.
To narrow the search to specific individuals,
Saudi officials said they needed at least one and preferably
two middle names. What they are given to work with now is a lot
of Joe Smiths.
For example, there might be thousands
and thousands of people with the name Waleed Alshehri, one of
the men whose name appears on the list of suspects who rammed
the first plane into the World Trade Center.
For a while, suspicion focused on the
son of Saudi diplomat with that name who had studied at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University in Florida, but his father said he was
alive and working as a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines. The
confusion apparently stems from the fact that the F.B.I. is matching
the names on the passenger manifests to students who have trained
in flying.
In the southern Saudi town of Khamis
Mushait, however, there is an established businessman named Mohammed
Al-Shehri who is missing 2 of his 11 sons. One of them is Waleed
Mohammed Al-Shehri.
Mr. Waleed, 21, was studying to be a
teacher, while his brother Wail, 26, already had a degree in
physical education and was teaching, their father told the Saudi
newspaper Al-Watan The older brother was suffering from psychological
problems and kept seeking the help of clerics to perform a kind
of religious exorcism to cure him, the father said.
Both men disappeared in December while
on a trip to seek yet more help and have not been heard from
since. They had grown increasingly religious before their disappearance
and spoke often about joining the fight in Chechnya, the paper
quoted family friends as saying. Their pictures match those released
by the F.B.I.
To try to eliminate confusion, Saudi
officials said they had repeatedly asked for more information
on the suspects, especially longer names, but they had yet to
receive it. Plus, in a few cases it appears the hijackers resorted
to outright deception.
A passenger using the name Abdel Azia
Al-Omari and the birth date of December 24, 1972, is listed on
the manifest of the flight that hit the towers first. But a man
with the same name and birth date turned up alive in Riyadh,
where he told the Al Sharq Al Awsat daily that he had studied
electrical engineering at University of Denver. His passport
was stolen there in 1995.